Bob Brozman is the number
one expert on National steel bodied resonator guitars. He has recorded
numerous albums on Blues, Hawaiian and Roots music and has released six
albums this year alone.

HANS OLSON

Hans Olson is a veteran
performing musician with over 25 years in the music business.He began his
career as a lead singer in a Rock & Roll band in Southern California
in 1967. By 1970, Hans had developed a very unique and powerful solo act.

KELLY JOE PHELPS

Country Blues is where
it all began. Go back to the early days of 78s and youíll find the country
blues of Blind Lemon Jefferson and Robert Johnson. These days Taj Mahal
and Kebí Moí are playing with the fire, the raw energy of country blues.
Kelly Joe Phelps plays acoustic country blues, and he does so with an achingly
beautiful melancholy that is the emotional core of the music and the definitive
trait of so many of the genreís legends: Skip James, Mississippi Fred McDowell,
Robert Pete Williams.

GARY REX TANNERMISSISSIPPI SLIM

Gary Rex Tanner and Mississippi
Slim are a breath of fresh air and an oasis in a desert of verdecibled
Technopop.

KAREN TYLER

Thereís nothing quite as
satisfying as the rich, smoky flavour of hard earned lessons and personal
experience. Karen Tyler serves up a steaming stew of the stuff on her new
CD ďLoviní the Blues Too LongĒ. Tyler tempers the bitterness of broken
hearts, lost love and lost faith with the sweet promise of hope and a dash
of southern style humour.

ETTA BAKER

Etta Baker of Morganton,
North Carolina was born in 1913 and has been playing the guitar since the
age of four.She is the premier woman Piedmont blues guitar instrumentalist.
Her only contemporary was the late Elizabeth Cotton of Carrboro, North
Carolina.Nature loving Etta Baker is often accompanied by wild animals.
For proof,check out the duet she recorded with a finch on Carolina Breakdown
from her latest CD.

MORE PIEDMONT BLUESJOHN JACKSON

John Jackson was born and
reared in Woodville,Rappahannock County,Virginia, where the green rolling
hills of the Piedmont join the smoky vistas of the northern Blue Ridge
Mountains.Music, work, friends and family are inseparable in Johnís world.
They give pleasure, sustenance and a sense of place. John has travelled
far, but his values reflect a Woodville of long ago and a tradition of
music kept in the generations of a family.

STRAIGHT OUT OF AUSTIN,TEXASDALE WATSON

Only Brisbane show, October
3,1999, at La Cruda, Bonapartes Hotel, Fortitude Valley with special guests
The Slingshots and Big Jim Black. Doors open at 3pm.

CD REVIEWDEEP RIVER OF SONG

Mississippi:Saints &
SinnersMississippi:The Blues
LineageThe time has come for
Blues Purists to rejoice for the Alan Lomax Collection is here.Now thereís
a number ofthese collections that
have been released recently by Rounder, but the Deep River Of Song series
of which there are five CDs stands head and shoulders above the rest. These
field recordings made for the Library of Congress by Alan and John A.Lomax
from 1933 to1946 are of great historical importance to all lovers of the
Blues. All of these field recordings have been remastered, but youíll still
hear some surface noise.On Saints & Sinners
youíll hear work songs and prison camp hollers from Big Charlie Butler,
spirituals fromDeacon Tom Jones and Reverend
C.H.Savage along with an interview between Savage and Alan Lomax. Thereís
also dance tunes and ragtime. Sid Hemphill the grandfather of Jessie Mae
Hemphill is recorded here playing his panpipes and fiddle on two tracks.
The recordings on the Blues Lineage CD are absolutely mind blowing, Ragged
and Dirty & Mississippi Blues from Willie Brown run for five and six
minutes. There are two songs from Muddy Waters You Gonna Miss MeWhen Iím Gone, & I
Be Bound To Write To You which later became I Canít Be Satisfied when he
went to Chicago.There are also songs from Honeyboy Edwards, Willie Ford,
Son House and someone who is new to me, LuciousCurtis with a wonderful
song called High Lonesome Hill. Both CDs come with extensive liner notes
includingsong lyrics and dialogue between Lomax and the artists.

CD REVIEWRORY BLOCK

Confessions of a Blues
SingerThis latest album from
Rory Block, which has won Best Acoustic Blues Album at this yearís WC Handy
Awards is a killer of an album.Confessions of a Blues Singer displays all
the raw power that delta bluesmen like Charlie Patton and Robert Johnson
had on their recordings. Rory has gone for feel rather than perfection,
and says that they never reallymixed this album, instead
settling for the studio roughs as they had the best energy. Two Robert
Johnson songs get it going with If I Had Possession Over Judgement Day
and Rambliní On My Mind which also features Bonnie Raitt playing some tasty
fills and a solo on acoustic slide. I Am In The Heavenly Way, a song by
Bukka White, has Roryís youngest son, Jordan dueting with her on vocals.
Jordan sings with such a growl that you think youíre listening to Blind
Willie Johnson. Rory continues her tradition of recording songs by blueswomen.
Louise Johnson recorded her music in 1930. Her song Long Way From Home
is included and features Rory on vocals, with Jordan playing some fine
boogie piano.Charlie Pattonís Bo Weavil
Blues is the basis of this album. The slide riff from this song came to
Rory in a dream and she knew she was meant to record it. Confessions of
a Blues Singer is Roryís thirteenth album for Rounder since 1981 and is
definitely her best one yet.